Chad police close radio station, detain manager

December 16, 2016 6:25 PM ET

Police in Kelo, some 400 kilometres (249 miles) south of the capital N'Djamena, on November 14, 2016, arrested Edmond Oueidigue Kandi, the manager of the community radio station Radio Bargadje, and ordered the station closed, Kandi told the Committee to Protect Journalists. According to Kandi and media reports, local administrative authorities ordered the station closed and the journalist's arrest in response to Radio Bargadje's November 10 reporting on violence between herders and farmers over land use in the area. Police accused Kandi of fomenting conflict, the reports said.

Kandi told CPJ that police detained him until November 24, following a court's order to release him. The station reopened on November 30 and resumed regular broadcasts on December 1, Kandi said.

Deli Nestor, publisher of the privately owned semi-weekly investigative newspaper Eclairage in Chad, was handed a six-month suspended prison sentence by a criminal court in N'Djamena on February 13, 2019, after he was convicted of defaming the brother of President Idriss Deby, according to Nestor, who spoke to the...